I'm a fan of the books of ASOIAF, and really, really hated how S5 deviated from the books. As known to you all, GRRM isn't a fast writer and may take another 5 (possitive thinking) years to complete the series. And as known, the show-runners of GoT know the ending of the books (sort of), so I expect that the TV-show will have about the same ending as the books (It will deviate in some or minor elements). GoT is hot, and will be discussed on social media alot, so I will be getting spoilers even if I don't watch the show.

So here is my dillema, I don't want to watch GoT, but I can't stick my head in the sand for another 5 years for GRRM to finish the series.

Just watch the show IMO. It's already deviated quite a bit from the books, and will presumably deviate even more. Knowing "how it all ends" isn't likely to destroy your enjoyment of reading the books, anymore than having read the books previously destroyed anyone's enjoyment watching the TV show. It's the details along the way that make the story.

Oh. And your odds of avoiding spoilers for X number of years is pretty much nil anyway. So there is that.

In previous seasons, they got you by having nude scene with hot women being quickly switched to "HAHA GAY PORN". In this season they pull a Shining and make the hot nude red head show her true form. A very old, wrinkly, saggy witch.

I didn't really expect much out of a season premier and that's pretty much what I got, not much. A fair amount of reminders and set up and for what's to come, but no actual story progression at all. I may just hold off on this season and binge watch it at some point over the Summer.

Well, at least the predicted resurrection finally happened. I guess they had to toss in some Red Priestess angst along the way.

Totally did not like the way the Sand Snakes were managed. Not sure if it was just bad editing, but it was very unclear where Trystane was (as in where the ship he was on was), and how the snakes got there, why he's not concerned about them being there, etc, etc, etc. You'd think they would be suspects number one in Myrcella's death, so he'd assume they were a danger, but he doesn't react that way. Additionally, how did they get there? Was this on the ship while still at King's Landing? Was it back in Dorne? Very confusing IMO. Also kinda unclear how the nation of Dorne ever lasted if apparently, no one is able to protect themselves from a handful of angry women. I get that they're playing up the perception of Doran as weak (which in the book is merely an act while he puts his own plan in place, which clearly isn't going to happen here), but it still comes off as hamfisted.

Ramsey's betrayal was somewhat predictable, though I didn't think he'd go quite that far that fast (although with that family, I suspect hesitation isn't a quality that leads to longevity). Great thing is that he thinks Castle Black is relatively unguarded. Boy is he in for a surprise. Would really really really like to see what Jon Snow will do to him if he has the opportunity. Probably far more merciful and quick than he deserves.

All in all, it's looking pretty decent. First episode of each season tends to be a bit slow, and this one was as well. But it looks like the body count is already ramping up. So... yay!

The thread title is tagged for spoilers, so nuts to anybody reading this and expecting me to tag everything.

I've been disappointed with the Sand Snakes going back to last season. This is the most popular show on Earth with the largest budget of anything ever to grace the silver screen, and they can't find three women who can at least act like they know how to handle the weapons they're supposed to be so deadly with? This isn't a "haha girly-girl looks like a girl" thing; the three actresses they cast clearly hadn't had any training. The "fight" scenes involving the Sand Snakes in season 5 were "SyFy Original Movie" bad.

Also, I find it funny that people see scenes like the one in which Ramsey turns his hounds on his step-mother and newborn baby brother and think, "Oh my gosh, how can this show promote violence against children like that?!" It's almost as if they haven't seen any of the prior episodes. The same thing happened last season when Ramsey raped Sansa after their marriage; people were outraged at the insensitivity of a show about terrible, awful people who do terrible, awful things to each other in the quest for power.

Also also, do not shoot arrows at giants. You'll only make them mad....

Eh. I think the pacing is about what it's been in past seasons. If you want slow, just look back at season 2. It took the whole season for Stannis to get his army to King's Landing. And in that whole time Rob can't seem to move his army anywhere (he's still north of the Riverrun area mid way through season 3). Dany spends the entire season looking for her dragons. And Jon spends the whole time wandering around in the snow. Things run slow because there are so many simultaneous story lines.

If anything, this season seems to be moving things along faster. In three episodes, we've seen Jon resurrected, fort retaken, reunited with Sansa and poised to deal with Ramsay. Arya has already gotten her sight back and is moving to the next phase of her training (wherever that's going, who knows?). Dany has basically just conquered the entire Dothraki nation (could have spent an entire season just dealing with her being "lost" or whatever). Two of the major plotlines (Dany and Jon's stories) have basically leaped forward after more or less dragging for 5 seasons. Both are now positioned for whatever impact they're to have (although that does not preclude additional delays or distractions, so who knows?). The only thing actually kinda dragging is the stuff in King's Landing. And even that looks like it's poised for a violent conclusion (ok, probably not actual conclusion, but a big move forward).

It looks like they're moving those stories forward while introducing new ones (the Pike stuff, and the Sand Snakes, both of which will presumably have some effect on something at some point). My understanding is that they intend to end the series at 7 seasons. So this season will likely resolve a number of running story lines, and unite "team summer" (or whatever we're going to call them). And the last season will likely detail their conflict with "team winter". That's not to say there wont be plenty of intrigue, plotting, and scheming, etc along the way, but it's going to be hard to focus on an epic conflict with the forces of pure evil while still dealing with somewhat more "petty" plots. It's GoT, so it's not like all the characters are just going to stop what they're doing and help out for the common good or anything, but the writers will have to figure out how to force resolutions to many of those plots. So I'd expect much less dawdling and more resolutions this season (and by "resolutions" I mean "deaths".

I think GOT really just needs more time (longer seasons) to do everything they want to do with the story.

You think that, but really they'd just use the extra time to add in all the wine-soaked Tyrion quips that got left on the cutting room floor. We don't need B-grade Tyrion material, we for all the stray threads to start spinning into rope.

Jon Snow is half Stark, half Targaryen. Daenerys has a huge army, ships, and 3 dragons, heading to Westeros. Cerci is on the throne, for now, after she kills everyone and drives her last child to suicide. I'm thinking one of her brothers will be the one to kill her. Either one, Tyrion as an ultimate revenge, or Jaime as some sort of "I love you, I'm going to save you from yourself".

Little finger still wants Sansa. I'm sure Sansa's not going to take any of that.

Even with the Half-Brother/Sister angle, I'm still thinking Jon Snow and Daenerys end up together.

I know that's the popular theory, but are we sure he isn't the son of Robert Baratheon? The entire first season was about finding kids with wiry black hair who were Robert's illegitimate offspring, and the description sure fits Jon. On the other hand, Targaryens typically have very light blonde/silver hair (like Dany's).

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Cerci is on the throne, for now, after she kills everyone and drives her last child to suicide. I'm thinking one of her brothers will be the one to kill her. Either one, Tyrion as an ultimate revenge, or Jaime as some sort of "I love you, I'm going to save you from yourself".

This was the theory of a coworker of mine as well. He now owes me lunch.

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One more short season left maybe?

The showrunners have been saying for a long time that Season 7 would be the last one.

I know that's the popular theory, but are we sure he isn't the son of Robert Baratheon?

I was under the impression that they just confirmed it. In the flashback Bran was viewing. The birth of Jon Snow. Wasn't that Ned's sister in the tower giving brith to Jon Snow? And I thought Ned's sister was kidnapped and raped by Targaryen? I thought the whole thing was them showing that Jon Snow was the son of Ned Stark's sister and the Targaryen king?

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This was the theory of a coworker of mine as well. He now owes me lunch.

What sort of bet is that? Are you saying he's wrong, or he's right? We wouldn't know yet either way, right?

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One more short season left maybe?

The showrunners have been saying for a long time that Season 7 would be the last one.

I hadn't been paying attention too much. Last I had heard they were going to do some short seasons, then I did hear someone say something about 7 being the end, but I didn't read into it.

I know that's the popular theory, but are we sure he isn't the son of Robert Baratheon?

I was under the impression that they just confirmed it. In the flashback Bran was viewing. The birth of Jon Snow. Wasn't that Ned's sister in the tower giving brith to Jon Snow? And I thought Ned's sister was kidnapped and raped by Targaryen? I thought the whole thing was them showing that Jon Snow was the son of Ned Stark's sister and the Targaryen king?

She was raped by Raegar Targaryen, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the son is his. I mean, he probably is, and I don't have anything else to back up my theory, but I won't be 100% convinced until they confirm it unequivocally.

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This was the theory of a coworker of mine as well. He now owes me lunch.

What sort of bet is that? Are you saying he's wrong, or he's right? We wouldn't know yet either way, right?[/quote] He said it would happen in this episode, the dummy.

I know that's the popular theory, but are we sure he isn't the son of Robert Baratheon?

I was under the impression that they just confirmed it. In the flashback Bran was viewing. The birth of Jon Snow. Wasn't that Ned's sister in the tower giving brith to Jon Snow? And I thought Ned's sister was kidnapped and raped by Targaryen? I thought the whole thing was them showing that Jon Snow was the son of Ned Stark's sister and the Targaryen king?

She was raped by Raegar Targaryen, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the son is his. I mean, he probably is, and I don't have anything else to back up my theory, but I won't be 100% convinced until they confirm it unequivocally.

I've heard this same theory from a couple sources now. I have one huge problem with it:

Lyanna specifically tells Ned that Robert will kill him (presumably the child) if he ever finds out, and gets Ned to promise he'll protect the child. Given that Robert seemed completely fine with having a ton of bastards running around, the idea that he'd want to kill the one child he fathered with the woman he was actually betrothed to seems a bit off. I'm assuming, based on various hints and comments, that the "big secret" is that Lyanna wasn't kidnapped by Rhaegar, but that they were in love and eloped. The only way Jon could be Robert's son is if she was pregnant before being kidnapped (or running away). Again though, that would not give Robert any reason to want to kill Jon. He'd be overjoyed that his son survived and he had something of Lyanna left (I suspect Robert himself was clueless about how Lyanna actually felt about him, or if he did know, pretended otherwise to save face, kinda like the relationship between him and Cersie later). It just makes far more sense, and fits the facts better, for Jon to be the son of Rhaegar and Lyanna.

As to the hair color thing, the issue was the fact that certain hair colors tend to be dominant. So the dark hair of the Baratheon's always resulted in dark haired children, making all three children of Cersei being blond suspicious. The assumption there is that even though one half of the couple had light hair, the children should have had dark hair. While not a Baratheon, Lyanna was a Stark, and they tend to have dark hair as well. It's reasonable to assume that a child of a Stark and a Targaryen would produce a child with dark hair. Following the same logic Ned applied before, if Jon had light colored hair, one would suspect that both his parents also had light colored hair. Since we know Lyanna is his mother, he should have dark hair regardless of the hair color of the father.

Again, this is assuming that the hair color has any relevance at all to his parentage.

Oh. And another point that shoots down the whole "Jon is Robert's son" theory is the amount of time that passed. Rhaegar kidnapping Lyanna is what starts a whole series of events off, and occurs very soon after the tournament at Harrenhall (where Rhaegar wins and rides past his wife to give the favor to Lyanna). In response to the kidnapping, Brandon (Ned's older brother Brandon, not his son) goes to King's Landing to demand his sister's return. The Mad King holds him and a few banner men hostage and demands Rickard Start (this time Ned's father and not his son) to come to negotiate terms. He then burns both of them to death. Then he sends word to Jon Arryn commanding him to bring Ned and Robert to Kings Landing to be punished as traitors. An order Jon Arryn refuses, instead joining up with Robert and his rebellion. Which itself takes a year or so to resolve.

Total time between when she is kidnapped and the war ends and she is found by Ned is sometime between one and two years. So unless human gestation is much much slower in the GoT world, there's no way she could have just given birth to Robert's child when Ned arrived. There's also the issue of why Rheagar would have left two of his kings guard (including one considered the best swordsman in all the kingdoms) to guard her if she was just a prisoner being held hostage for some reason. If her entire purpose was to be used as a pawn to cause antagonism with the northern lords, he had already succeeded at that and she was really of little additional value. If he intended to use her as some kind of bargaining chip, why put her in a tower well out of the way of the fighting going on? And how did she get pregnant if not by him? It just seems most likely that he was the father of the child and the guards were there protecting his heir. Nothing else makes much sense.

About the only thing that the J=R+L theory hinged on was the question of whether Lyanna was Jon's mother. Having now confirmed that fact, barring wild speculation involving another unknown and unmentioned man showing up and randomly impregnating her, it's as hard a confirmation of that theory as you can get without actually saying it out loud.

Oh. And that makes Jon Dany's nephew, not brother. Which makes them a bit too unrelated for a proper Targaryen relationship. You know... if we're going there.

Ya, I had mistakenly thought it was the King, not his son, who had kidnapped and raped her. I still think Jon Snow's the most likely Dany-mate. I don't think anyone alive would know the truth about Jon Snow's parentage, except maybe Little Finger. Not that it would really matter, cause incest seems to be pretty common in Westeros. Isn't there a Lonely Island song about fucuking your Aunt?

Ya, I had mistakenly thought it was the King, not his son, who had kidnapped and raped her. I still think Jon Snow's the most likely Dany-mate. I don't think anyone alive would know the truth about Jon Snow's parentage, except maybe Little Finger. Not that it would really matter, cause incest seems to be pretty common in Westeros. Isn't there a Lonely Island song about fucuking your Aunt?

Yeah. I saw your earlier post indicating you realized the mistake (and it's a freaking easy one to make to be honest). Just figured I'd clarify things for the broad audience that's likely reading all this (right?).

Bran knows the truth now, so if we assume that he has any significant role to play in what's coming (which would be a massive waste of screen time if not true), and we assume Jon also plays a significant role (ditto), then it's likely that it'll come out at some point and in some way. Or it could hilariously be kept secret, via a strange look on Brans face when/if Jon and Dany announce their marriage, followed by a gulp and a look of "I'm just keeping my mouth shut and pretending nothings happening here".

I actually have a pet theory that Bran is actually the original Brandon Stark, and that he somehow wargs back in time and arranges the construction of the Wall, Winterfell, makes peace with the children, etc. So basically sets everything up that will later be necessary to defeat the night king. In which case, he may or may not have a huge amount of interaction with Jon, especially at the very end of the story. And honestly, that resolves the "problem" of Bran showing up after Jon has taken on the mantle of King of the North, given that Bran is actually the legitimate heir to Winterfell. Overlooking Jon's ******* origins when there's no other living male heir is one thing. Overlooking it when there is one is something else entirely.